Former Penn State president Graham Spanier was charged Thursday with perjury, obstruction and endangering the welfare of children in connection to the case against former PSU assistant coach Jerry Sandusky.

Spanier faces eight charges in all, including three felonies.

Spanier was the only high-ranking official involved in the scandal who had not faced any charges. Pennsylvania Attorney General Linda Kelly made the announcement during a news conference.

Spanier was fired by the university last November, along with the late Joe Paterno, in the wake of the indictment against Sandusky on charges of child sexual assault. Spanier remains a faculty member but was placed on paid leave Thursday.

Sandusky, after being convicted on 45 counts, has since been sentenced to at least 30 years in prison. On Wednesday it was reported that he has been moved to a facility for death row inmates.

Spanier was among those cited in the independent Freeh Report for constructing a cover-up to protect Penn State’s reputation after he, along with Paterno, ex-vice president Gary Schultz and ex-athletic director Tim Curley, were notified of allegations made against Sandusky.

The charges were filed with a suburban Harrisburg district judge, whose office said Curley and Schultz were expected to be arraigned Friday afternoon and Spanier tentatively scheduled to appear Wednesday. They came nearly a year to the day that Sandusky was arrested.

Curley's lawyer Caroline Roberto said he was innocent of all charges, as he has asserted in the past. She said the new documents were being reviewed and would have a more comprehensive comment later. Schultz also has maintained his innocence; his lawyer did not return a message seeking comment.

"This was not a mistake, oversight or misjudgment," Kelly told reporters. "This was a conspiracy by the top officials." Kelly added that Penn State ignored requests for documents pertaining to the investigation between 2010 all the way up until Spanier was fired in November of 2011.

The grand jury report included with the charges said "the actual harm realized by this wanton failure is staggering," and listed instances of abuse detailed at Sandusky's criminal trial that happened after 1998.

"The continued cover-up of this incident and the ongoing failure to report placed every minor child who would come into contact with Sandusky in the future in grave jeopardy of being abused," jurors wrote.

Spanier has said he had no memory of email traffic concerning the 1998 complaint made by a mother after Sandusky showered with her son, and only slight recollections about the 2001 complaint by a team assistant who said he stumbled onto Sandusky sexually abusing a boy inside a campus shower.

The grand jury report indicates Curley, Schultz and Spanier told the university's lawyer they had no documents that addressed Sandusky having inappropriate contact with boys.

But Schultz did retain a Sandusky file in his office, the jury concluded, and he told his administrative assistant Joan Coble never to look at it.

"She said it was a very unusual request and was made in a 'tone of voice' she had never heard him use before," according to the jury report.

In an interview on ABC Nightly News, Spanier, the PSU president for 16 years, talked about his regrets.

“I wish in hindsight I would have known more about Jerry Sandusky and his terrible, terrible hidden past so I could have intervened,” Spanier said during the television interview. “I didn’t conjure up…anything more than throwing water or snapping towels. It’s not in my nature to go around thinking the worst of people.”

In the exhaustive Freeh Report concluded this summer, email exchanges suggested that Curley, Schultz and Spanier initially agreed to report accusations of Sandusky’s assault of a young boy made by then-assistant football coach Mike McQueary. They at first agreed to tell child welfare authorities. However, after discussing the situation with Paterno, Curley returned to his superiors and told them he suggested they go directly to Sandusky and encourage him to get professional help. The Freeh Report also suggested that the men knew of a 1998 allegation against Sandusky as well.

“This approach is acceptable to me,” Spanier wrote in a Feb. 27, 2001 email regarding McQueary's allegation. “The only downside for us if the message isn’t ‘heard’ and acted upon, and we then become vulnerable for not having reported it. But that can be assessed down the road. The approach you outline [is] a reasonable way to proceed.”

Spanier argues the email was taken out of context and that in fact, he didn’t realize the severity the allegations against Sandusky, a longtime Penn State assistant football coach.